The Future of Online News Video - Reuters Institute for the study of

Transcription

I G I TA L N E W S P R O J E C T D I G I TA L N E W S P R O J E C T D I G I TA L N E W S P R O J E C T D I G I TA L N E W S
Reuters Institute
for the Study of Journalism
THE FUTURE OF ONLINE
NEWS VIDEO
ANTONIS KALOGEROPOULOS,
FEDERICA CHERUBINI, AND NIC NEWMAN
2016
CONTENTS
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
Executive Summary
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Introduction: The Rise of Online Video
Online News Video Consumption
Production and Distribution Strategies
Monetisation Strategies
The Future of Online News Video
References
List of Interviewees
4
4
5
7
10
23
35
42
44
46
Public Service NewS aNd digital Media
About the Authors
Antonis Kalogeropoulos is a Postdoctoral research Fellow at the reuters institute for the Study of
Journalism. He is currently working on a project aimed at assessing the production and consumption of
news in more than 20 countries. His focus in this project lies in exploring the proliferation of online news
videos. His research interests include political communication, journalism, and audience research.
Federica Cherubini is a media consultant and editorial researcher based in london. For the past five years,
she has worked for the world association of Newspapers and News Publishers (waN-iFra) in Paris on
several projects exploring the future of journalism and newsrooms around the world. She now works with
waN-iFra on engagement strategies and editorial conference planning. She was one of the three
researchers behind the project ‘Monitoring, moderating and managing online comments: towards best
practice’, funded by the Open Society Foundation, for which she interviewed dozens of online editors and
social media managers worldwide in order to identify the different ways that news organisations are
approaching online commenting and investigating how citizens engage, as well as the role communities play
in the society of information.
Nic Newman is a journalist and digital strategist who played a key role in shaping the bbc’s internet
services over more than a decade. He was a founding member of the bbc News website, leading
international coverage as world editor (1997–2001). as Head of Product development, he led digital teams,
developing websites, mobile, and interactive tv applications for all bbc Journalism sites. Nic is currently a
research associate at the reuters institute for the Study of Journalism. He is also a consultant on digital
media, working actively with news companies on product, audience, and business strategies for digital
transition.
Acknowledgements
the authors are incredibly grateful to the more than 30 media executives that dedicated their time in talking
about online news video. the authors would also like to thank Newswhip, chartbeat, the bbc and the
Guardian for providing us with data for online news video consumption. we are also grateful for the support
and feedback from the team at the reuters institute for the Study of Journalism including annika Sehl, Sarah
anne ganter, alessio cornia, richard Fletcher, david levy, rebecca edwards, Hannah Marsh, and alex reid.
Finally, we would like to thank rasmus Kleis Nielsen for his extensive and constructive feedback.
Published by the reuters institute for the Study of Journalism with the support of google and the digital
News initiative.
4
tHe Future OF ONliNe NewS videO
Executive Summary
the last few years have seen an explosion of online video, driven by technical improvements, initiatives from
platforms like Facebook, and investment by media companies in new visual storytelling formats. but to what
extent are consumers embracing news video? is this an incremental addition to the digital landscape or
another fundamental disruption requiring urgent and immediate action?
in this reuters institute report, we combine data on video consumption and production from a number of key
sources with more than 30 interviews from news organisations across europe and North america. On the
basis of this evidence, we find the following:
•
So far, the growth around online video news seems to be largely driven by technology, platforms, and
publishers rather than by strong consumer demand. website users in particular remain resistant to
online video news with only around 2.5% of average visit time spent on video pages in a range of 30
online news sites; 97.5% of time is still spent with text. around 75% of respondents to a reuters
institute survey of 26 countries said they only occasionally (or never) use video news online.
•
Having said that, interest in video news does increase significantly when there is a big breaking news
story. based on log file evidence provided to us by the bbc around the Paris attacks, the percentage
of users accessing video per visit doubled from around 10% on a normal day to 22% immediately
after the attack. Online video news provides a powerful and popular way of covering compelling
stories, but not all everyday news coverage is equally compelling.
•
Meanwhile, off-site news video consumption is growing fast. Many publishers we interviewed said
that the majority of their video is now consumed through Facebook and other platforms. Some
individual viral videos we studied for this report have had 75–100 million views, far more than they
could ever have expected using their own websites; however, many other videos sink without trace.
•
we find that the most successful off-site and social videos tend to be short (under one minute), are
designed to work with no sound (with subtitles), focus on soft news, and have a strong emotional
element. given the growing importance of social media as a source of news, this very different format
is arguably already affecting the content and tone of news coverage in general.
•
Publishers are beginning to embrace online news video, with 79% of senior digital news leaders
surveyed by the reuters institute at the start of 2016 saying they would be investing more during the
year. we find a number of traditional publishers planning major initiatives (e.g. bbc’s ten to watch)
but others are just dipping their toes in the water. Most news organisations are in an experimental
phase; they are nervous about the significant investment required, the difficulty of scaling video, and
the uncertain path to commercial return.
•
broadcasters should be in the best position to take advantage of the move to video with a wealth of
relevant skills, but in many cases we find them struggling to adapt to the new grammar of digital
online video. by contrast, both newspapers and digital-born companies have had to build capacity
and skills from scratch. Newspapers, in a period of retrenchment, have found it challenging to fund
new investment and retrain a predominantly text-based workforce. digital-born companies have
been better equipped to take risks in new formats and distribution but many have become
dependent on powerful platforms over which they have little control.
5
•
we find varying approaches to resourcing and organising online video news production. we
interviewed the following: news organisations that have only one or two people working on online
news video; news organisations with large and well-established teams that operate largely
independently from the main newsroom; and, finally, publishers that have tried to fully integrate online
video into the commissioning and the production of their journalism.
•
issues of scale and technology are particularly pressing. Producing videos can be a time-consuming
process using legacy systems, while digital-born competitors have better technology but are under
pressure to create more and more content with the same number of staff. automated or semiautomated software is emerging to help solve these issues.
•
the monetisation of online news video remains the biggest challenge for publishers. On-site
monetisation continues to focus on pre-roll ads, despite widespread acknowledgement that this is a
poor user experience that is affecting growth. Off-site monetisation is also problematic with much
depending on the outcome of various Facebook product initiatives. to overcome these challenges,
publishers are creating sponsored or branded content but many are struggling to scale this approach
given the often bespoke nature of video production.
Overall, we are cautious about the long-term dynamics for video news in particular. although there has been
a significant growth in online video, much of this has been in social networks and around softer news and
lifestyle content (or premium drama and sports on demand), not news. video that adds drama and
immediacy is now valued and expected by consumers on news websites, but only up to a point and in
certain circumstances, with both young and old still valuing the control and flexibility of text. although we are
likely to see considerable innovation in both formats and production over the next few years, it is hard to see
video replacing text in terms of the range of stories and the depth of comment and analysis traditionally
generated by publishers. the high commercial returns currently available around video are unlikely to last if,
as expected, more investment and more automated systems lead to a substantial increase in the supply of
content, thus driving down advertising rates.
6
1. Introduction: The Rise of Online Video
every year we see new evidence of the exponential growth of video distributed over the internet
and projections of further increases to come (ericsson, 2015). Much of this relates to the rise of the
‘over-the-top’ entertainment content from the likes of Netflix and amazon, which is essentially a
new way of delivering television on demand. but we are also seeing the emergence of a new kind
of ‘native’ video that is made for the web itself. this content tends to be short form and is created
by traditional publishers, specialist digital-born brands, agencies, and companies, or indeed any
individual with the desire to do so.
Smartphones and tablets with high-definition screens have enabled consumers to watch videos
anywhere, while on-board cameras, apps, and simple editing software have lowered barriers to
entry for content creation. at the same time, bandwidth has become cheaper and more plentiful
with the cost of mobile data plans falling in many countries. Over the last year in particular, social
networks like twitter and Facebook have embraced these trends with news feeds filling up with
videos, enabling extraordinary levels of intentional and accidental exposure to these new native
formats. Facebook’s video consumption has increased by 75% in the past year, reaching 8 billion
daily video views; over 1.5 million small businesses posted a video (or a video ad) on Facebook in
September 2015.1
these developments coincide with the first fall in tv news viewership after decades of continuous
growth (Newman et al. 2016). in countries such as the uK, the uSa, and France, a fall in
viewership of television news bulletins has been documented, especially among the young but also
in the population as a whole (Nielsen and Sambrook, 2016). the advent of new services like
Periscope and Facebook live means that the video-enabled internet is now often the first port of
call for big breaking news events like the Paris and brussels attacks. Furthermore, Facebook’s
native player with autoplay functionality has helped it catch up with Youtube as the premier
destination for online video in general, of which news is a significant part.
Figure 1.1. US daily video views 2013–15*
9.00
8.00
7.00
6.00
Billions
5.00
Facebook
4.00
YouTube
3.00
2.00
1.00
0.00
Q2-13
Q4-13
Q2-14
Q4-14
Q2-15
Q4-15 e
Source: Company data and Activate analysis
* Facebook counts views at 3 seconds, YouTube at 30 seconds
1
information garnered via a private conversation with the Facebook press office, 29/04/2016.
7
The foremost motive for investing in online news video is that, in this day and age,
consumers expect to see video content in their news feed.2
edward adams, video News editor, telegraph Media group
with Facebook and Youtube offering powerful new distribution platforms, publishers have felt
compelled to experiment with new formats and new ways of reaching audiences.
responding to these new opportunities, publishers like cNN and the Huffington Post have
increased the amount of short-form video posted to Facebook by between five and tenfold in less
than a year.
Table 1.1. Number of Facebook videos per month (selected publishers)
Source: NewsWhip, based on content published in June 2015 and February 2016
broadcast and print organisations are forced to adapt to rapid changes in consumer behaviour
including a greater reliance on mobile and social media as a source of news. this is making it
harder and harder for publishers to capture the attention of viewers for more than a few minutes
and to maintain a direct relationship with audiences; these trends are making it more difficult to
monetise content. with other revenue streams faltering, the hope is that online video can reenergise the digital advertising market at the same time as providing better ways of engaging
audiences. against this background, it is not surprising that in a recent survey for the reuters
institute, 79% of ceOs, editors, and digital leaders said they planned to invest more in online video
this year.
Figure 1.2. What are your company’s plans for online video?
invest about the same as last year
invest less than last year
invest more than last year
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Source: Reuters Institute Digital Leaders’ Survey 2016, n-188 (excluding 12 don’t knows/did not answer)
but in this rush to video, some industry veterans remain cautious: ‘i don’t think video is going to be
the saviour,’ says Jason Mills, Head of digital at itv News. ‘there will be masses and masses of
video out there.’3
2
3
edward adams, telegraph Media group, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 09/12/2015.
Jason Mills, itv News, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 8/02/2016.
8
acknowledging the widespread discussion about the future of video, this report sets out to explore
emerging consumption patterns as well as the online video strategies of leading publishers. More
particularly, we are interested in identifying the opportunities and challenges publishers face in the
production and monetisation of online news videos. to understand the online news video
strategies, we interviewed 30 heads of video, heads of digital, or editors-in-chief working in
publishers in the uK, the uSa, germany, and italy. the choice of these countries allowed us to
capture the trends in markets with different dynamics and different levels of digital news
consumption. the interviews were conducted between december 2015 and February 2016.
the online video consumption section of the report (chapter 2) is based on a range of web
analytics sources that measure actual usage as well as our own survey data.
•
Survey data was taken from the reuters institute’s Digital News Reports from 2014 until
2016. these surveys employ representative samples of the online population of up to 26
countries.
•
to measure on-site web traffic data, we used data from chartbeat, a web analytics
company that measures both the text and video performance of publisher websites using a
tagging methodology. we have data from ten outlets (four broadcasters, four print outlets,
and two digital-born outlets), half of which are based in the uSa.
•
to identify which outlets and which news videos are successful off-site, we employed data
from Newswhip, a company which tracks the distribution of news stories in social media
along with levels of engagement.
•
we also take a deep dive into one of the most important stories of 2015 (the attacks in
Paris) using data provided by the bbc. we explore how this traditional news organisation
used online news video on the day of the attacks as well as in the week following the
events.
in chapter 3, we map the digital video production strategies of news outlets in four different
countries (uK, uSa, germany, and italy). in chapter 4, we identify opportunities and challenges for
the investment and monetisation of online news video. in the final chapter (chapter 5), we go
through the main findings and outline our thoughts about the future of online news video.
9
2. Online News Video Consumption
in this chapter, we look at how frequently and where online news video is consumed on- and offsite. More specifically, we use data from different sources to understand how prominent online
news video is, what kind of video is more successful, and on which platforms and devices people
watch online news video. Finally, we examine how one publisher (the bbc) uses online news video
in a breaking news situation.
2.1 Use of Online News Video: A Sluggish Growth
to measure the prominence of online news video in 26 countries historically, we look at survey data
gathered for the Digital News Report 2016 (Newman et al., 2016). First we examine how many
people consume news via online news video in 26 countries in 2016. across all countries, around a
quarter (24%) of our sample claimed to view online news video in a given week. if we look at the
numbers by country (Figure 2.1), we find that the results vary from 33% in the uSa and 32% in
canada to 15% in denmark and 16% in Japan.
Figure 2.1. Online news video use across countries
60%
40%
20%
0%
uSa
caN
bra
gre
tur
ire
POl
auS
SPa
KOr
HuN
cZ
ita
JPN
dK
60%
40%
20%
0%
Swe
uK
Fra
bel
Swi
FiN
POr
ger
aut
Nl
Q11 Thinking of the way you looked at news online in the last week, which of the following ways of
consuming news did you use? Showing news video code.
Base: All markets 2016: USA: 2197; UK: 2024; Germany: 2035; France: 2162; Spain: 2001; Ireland: 2003; Finland: 2041; Austria: 2000;
Poland: 2000; Japan: 2011; Australia: 2021; Italy: 2195; Portugal: 2018; Denmark: 2020; Netherlands: 2006; Czech Republic: 2014;
Turkey: 2157; Brazil: 2001
For some countries, we have historic data on the use of video in 2014 and 2015. the comparison
of these data with 2016 is presented in the graphs below. while in some countries like the uK or
Spain we saw a substantial rise in online news video use from 2014 to 2015, the numbers from
2015 to 2016 were either stable or only growing slowly.
10
Figure 2.2. Online news video use across countries in 2014, 2015, and 2016
40%
2014
2015
2016
20%
0%
uSa
uK
ger
Fra
SPa
JPN
Q11 Thinking of the way you looked at news online in the last week, which of the following ways of
consuming news did you use? Showing news video code.
Base: USA: 2197; UK: 2024; Germany: 2035; France: 2162; Spain: 2001; Japan: 2011
we also found that text is largely preferred over video for each of the 26 countries in this report,
with the share of respondents that prefer text ranging from 68% in the uSa and germany to 80%
in italy. Preference of video over text was higher in the uSa (11%), while it was lower (4%–6%) in
the other three countries.
Figure 2.3. Preference for video or text news across countries
italy
germany
uK
uSa
Mostly text
text and video
Mostly video
don’t know
OPTQ11D. In thinking about your online news habits, which of the following statements applies best to you?
Mostly text = mostly text/mostly text and occasional video. Mostly video = mostly video and occasional text
and mostly video.
Base: 2016: USA: 2197; UK: 2024; Germany: 2035; Italy: 2195
we also asked those who say that they do not use online video news about some of the main
reasons for their lack of interest in the format. we should note here that the video-avoidant users
were the large majority of the Digital News Report survey respondents (76% across all 26
countries).
11
Figure 2.4. Barriers to watching video
i find reading quicker and more convenient
Pre-roll ads tend to put me off
videos take too long to load
i’d rather watch on a bigger screen
videos don’t add value to a text story
i’m concerned about cost (eg mobile)
Often they do not work properly on my device
No access to sound (eg at work)
0%
20%
40%
60%
Q11ai. You said that you don’t usually watch news videos online. Why not? Please select all that apply
Base: Total sample of news users in 26 countries who haven't watched news videos online in the last week (n= 53314)
these data show that while technological barriers (speed, screen size, dataset cost) are not the
primary reasons why people do not watch video, they put off a significant share of people from
watching it. However, two other barriers should be more worrying to publishers and advertisers: a
significant proportion of respondents (41%) think that reading articles is quicker and more
convenient than watching video news, and 19% feel that videos don’t add value to a text story. it is
noteworthy that pre-roll ads put off a third of non-users from watching news video.
Surprisingly, across our entire panel, most online news video is consumed on a laptop or desktop
computer (46%), followed by smartphone (18%), and tablet (9%). under-35s are more likely to use
a smartphone, but only to the extent that they use these devices more anyway.
ON-Site aNd diStributed videO
the numbers on Facebook consumption presented in the introduction show the growth of off-site
consumption in the past few years. this is backed up by our survey findings (see Figure 2.5
opposite) that show that off-site news video consumption is now higher than on-site consumption
in countries with high social media news reading (Spain, greece, brazil). in countries that use social
media less for news, such as Japan and germany, the share of off-site video consumption is
smaller but still noteworthy.
12
Figure 2.5. Balance between on-site and off-site news video consumption (selected countries)
60%
i mostly watch on news site
i mostly watch via Social Networks
40%
20%
0%
Japan
Finland
germany
uK
France
uS
Spain
italy
greece
brazil
Q11E. Which of the following statements best matches your consumption of online news video?
Base: Total sample in each country
it is also worth highlighting that in each of the 26 countries, the share of young respondents (<35)
watching videos via social networks was higher than the general population, something that
indicates that the future of online news consumption might be geared towards off-site
consumption..
2.2 On-Site Analytics
to understand online news consumption patterns on-site, we analysed data provided by
chartbeat, a web analytics company commonly used by news publishers that has also started to
work with video. we analysed a dataset that consisted of 30 outlets, nine broadcasters, six digitalborn and 15 print outlets (the outlets are anonymous). Fifteen outlets are hard news outlets, while
the other 15 outlets had a mixture of news and soft news content. in addition, 17 outlets were
american and 13 from other countries. the data for all these websites are from 1 december 2015
to 29 February 2016.
to examine how prominent the pages with videos are in these websites, we measured how many
pages in the domains of these outlets contained video and how much time unique visitors spent on
these pages as a share of the total time spent in the domains. On average, video was present in
6.5% of the pages of the domains of these news publishers, though we also found considerable
variation in these numbers reflecting different levels of investment. video pages in outlets varied
from 0.25% in a digital-born outlet to 34% in the website of a broadcaster.
then we looked at how much time was spent on these video pages as a share of the total time
spent in these domains per unique visit. although there was considerable variation between
websites,4 we found that on average, video accounted for 2.5% of total time spent on these
websites, a result that indicates a lack of audience attention on pages that contain video, given
that 6.5% of pages contained video. the vast majority of time spent (97.5%) on these outlets was
engaging with text, something that connects to our earlier survey finding showing a very strong
preference of text over video news in all 26 countries in the panel.
4
the share of viewers spending time on video pages varied from 0.3% to 27%.
13
Figure 2.6. Share of video pages and of time spent on video pages
Share of time spent
on video pages
Share of video
pages
0%
20%
Source: Chartbeat, 2016. n = 16,067,676 pages in 30 outlets, and 1,201,340,000,000 seconds people engaged in these pages
we checked these findings directly with a number of publishers who confirmed that both the
proportion of visitors and the share of time spent on video were generally around 10%, though it
was often much below that. corroboration comes from data provided by the bbc, a broadcaster
that makes a considerable amount of video available on its news website. looking at a two-month
period (September–October 2015), 11% of visitors to the bbc News website and bbc News app
used video. we found no substantial difference between the share of unique browsers watching
video on weekdays or at the weekend. data provided by the Guardian for april 2016 show 6.8%
(rounded to 7%) of total web and app users access video monthly, but this seems to be positively
related to brand loyalty as evidenced by much higher rates of usage among Guardian app users.
Figure 2.7. Percentage of visitors accessing videos on the BBC and the
Guardian websites. Source: BBC, 1 Sept - 31 Oct 2015; the Guardian, April 2016
unique visitors access
video (to web or app)
visitors access video
(across web/app monthly)
although only a relatively small proportion of website users access video on news websites, the
figure for video watching is growing, particularly off-site. On theguardian.com, the number of video
starts grew by 45% between May 2015 and May 2016 with a 58% increase in video completes.5
Facebook views (defined at three seconds) increased 136% between September 2015 and May 2016.
2.3 Off-Site Analytics
to identify which publishers fare better in off-site video consumption, we compared the Facebook
engagement numbers (an aggregate number of Facebook likes, comments, and shares for each
story) from the biggest uK, uS, german, and italian print, broadcaster, and digital-born outlets for
February 2016.6 we only included outlets that cover hard news though they may also have had
other formats. the list of the top videos was provided by Newswhip, a company providing
analytics on the way stories spread in social media. the results show that digital-born outlets like
Nowthis, aJ+, and Fanpage tend to dominate Facebook video, while some broadcasters and print
outlets like abc News, Fox News, and the independent are also successful. However, we should
5
6
Pers. comm. by email from the Guardian team.
the Facebook pages of outlets (and/or programmes) were: abc News, PbS News, cbS News, MSNbc News, Nbc
News, cNN, Fox News, HuffPost uS, Quartz, vox, Mashable, vice News, vice, buzzFeed News, buzzFeed, aJ+,
Nowthis, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, the guardian uS, bbc News,
SKY News, itv News, channel 4 News, channel 5 News, Daily Mail, the Guardian, Daily Mirror, the Telegraph, the
Independent, The Times, FT, the Sun, Liverpool Echo, Manchester Evening News, Evening Standard, Huffington Post
uK, buzzFeed uK, vice uK, N24, n-tv, ard, das erste, tagesschau, ZdF Heute Show, ZdF Heute, br (baverischer
rundfunk), Spiegel, Focus Online, Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Zeit Online, Stern, Die
Welt, die welt video, Frankfurter allgemeine Zeitung, buzzFeed deutschland, HuffPost deutschland, t-online, tg4tv,
rai News, SKY tg24, ballaró, Servizio Pubblico, Piazzapulita la7, La Repubblica, aNSa, Corriere della Sera, la
Stampa, il Sole 24 Ore, l’espresso, Fanpage, HuffPost italy.
14
note that if we included the uK entertainment publisher the lad bible in these charts, we would
see that it would have almost doubled the Facebook engagements per video than the top news
publisher (aJ+). Non-news buzzFeed channels like tasty (food) and Nifty (diY) also generate far
higher levels of engagement. these findings highlight the uneven relationship between news videos
and those focusing on lifestyle or entertainment.
Figure 2.8. Top publishers in terms of
Facebook video engagements
Figure 2.9. Top publishers in terms of
PER VIDEO Facebook video engagements
Now this
aJ+
FanPage.it
the Huffington Post
Fox News
the independent
abc News
cNN
channel 4 News
buzzfeed News
aJ+
FanPage.it
buzzfeed
buzzfeed uK
buzzfeed News
Nowthis
the guardian
the independent
the Huffington Post
Fox News
0
2,000,000 4,000,000 6,000,000 8,000,000 10,000,000
Source: NewsWhip, February 2016
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
Source: NewsWhip, February 2016
wHat videOS wOrK beSt iN SOcial Media?
to understand more about the drivers of success, we analysed the 500 native Facebook videos
that had the highest total engagement numbers (likes, comments, shares) from the same
publishers for February 2016.
Genre and length
Our analysis showed that almost 40% of the most successful videos from our news brands related
to lifestyle or entertainment content (for instance about animals, babies, or cooking) rather than
harder news subjects such as current affairs, politics, science, or the environment. Four of the top
ten videos related to entertainment or lifestyle content.
Figure 2.10. News vs entertainment in top Facebook native videos
News
entertainment
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Source: Analysis of top videos provided by NewsWhip, February 2016, n = 494 (6 videos were missing)
even for brands associated with hard news like the Telegraph, the Guardian, or the Independent, their
top or second videos in terms of Facebook engagement numbers turned out to be animal videos.
Figure 2.11. Screenshots of videos from the Telegraph (published 25 February 2016)
and the Guardian (published 6 February 2016) on Facebook
15
the average length for the Facebook native news videos was 75 seconds. However, 8% of the
news videos were longer than 120 seconds and over half (56%) of the news videos were shorter
than a minute.7
Emotions
Next, we examined whether the videos were emotional or factual. while these categories are not
mutually exclusive (emotional news videos usually have facts and factual videos can convey
emotions), we were interested in whether they were primarily emotional or factual. in detail, the
videos were coded according to whether ‘the primary purpose of the video was to convey
emotional responses or to present factual information’.8 Out of the news videos, 42% were
primarily emotional while 58% were primarily factual. in the top ten native Facebook news videos in
terms of engagement, seven were primarily emotional while three were primarily factual. the top
emotional videos for February 2016 were a touching cNN video of a mother who listens to her
son’s heart beating through the transplant recipient’s body and an abc video capturing the
reaction of a 106-year-old woman visiting the white House for black History Month.
Figure 2.12. (L–R) Screenshots from CNN (published on 1 February 2016) and ABC.com
(published on 22 February 2016) videos on Facebook
the top non-emotional video in terms of engagement was a video from the Huffington Post about
an ocean clean-up initiative.
Figure 2.13. Screenshot from a Huffington Post video on Facebook.
Video published on 11 February 2016
7
8
n = 303.
the news videos were coded by antonis Kalogeropoulos.
16
Figure 2.14. Emotional vs factual in top Facebook native videos
Factual
emotional
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Source: Analysis of top videos provided by NewsWhip, February 2016, n = 303
THE ROLE OF EMOTIONAL STORYTELLING
Nowthis is a digital-born publisher that sets out to use emotion to create views and shares. according
to executive editor Sarah Frank, ‘emotion is a wonderful starting point for your video’. Frank tells the
story of a video they made about when only female senators showed up to work in congress after a
snowstorm. instead of just running a simple clip from cSPaN, the producer turned it into a riff on
strong women, starting with a quote from one of the senators – ‘look around, isn’t this fabulous?’ – but
then intercutting with inspirational gifs of beyoncé and Oprah winfrey. the result was a video that
demanded to be shared and which delivered 60 million views in a week.
at Nowthis, producers look for an emotional angle to drive the narrative of almost every video because
sharing and liking means it is more likely to be picked up by the Facebook algorithm. this raises
questions about whether social video with an emotional slant may ultimately change the nature of news
itself. Sarah Frank accepts there is a danger of a slippery slope where only positive and partial news
becomes visible in news feeds, but says as a young brand they are still working out how to manage
these tensions: ‘we have examples where we feel like we’ve been objective and fair, but also drove
emotion, had a really strong point of view and entertained people.’9
Figure 2.15. Screenshot from a NowThis video on Facebook. Video published on 27 January 2016
9
Sarah Frank, Nowthis, interviewed by Nic Newman in april 2016.
17
Made FOr ONliNe uSe Or uSiNg tv cONteNt?
in our content analysis, the vast majority of the top online news videos were created specifically for
online use. a small minority of videos were taken directly from television and used directly on
Facebook without versioning. an even smaller share came from raw agency material or usergenerated content. the majority of videos (71%) had a text overlay (like a giant subtitle) so they
could be easily understood without sound.
Figure 2.16. Facebook native news videos by originating source
raw/
agency footage
tv
Online
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
Figure 2.17. Texted vs non-texted in top Facebook native news videos
texted
Non-texted
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
we also coded the top 140 news videos according to differences in the sound. the categories
were a) a reporter narrating the story, b) the video going straight to a politician or an interviewee,
and c) the video having no one narrating but with music, natural sound, or no sound at all. the
most striking result was that just 13% of videos were narrated by a journalist. the majority (51%) of
the most successful videos had someone narrating or simply talking (usually a politician or the main
actor of the story) and in 36% of the videos, there was no human sound.
2.4 Paris Attacks: BBC Video Analysis
On the evening of 13 November 2015, a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks took place in Paris
and its northern suburb, Saint-denis. three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France,
followed by suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafés, restaurants, and a music venue in
central Paris. the attackers killed 130 people, including 89 at the bataclan theatre.
the timing of the event (Friday night) meant that many people heard the news first on smartphones
and through social media rather than radio or tv. eyewitness news came first from social media
where new tools like Periscope added live user-generated video to the mix for the first time.
bystander Stephane Hannache used the app to broadcast live from outside the bataclan, at one
stage attracting around 10,000 simultaneous viewers. a vine video from the football match at the
Stade de France – with clearly audible explosions – was one of the first verified accounts of the
attacks.
18
daniel Psenny, a journalist for Le Monde, filmed concert-goers fleeing from the bataclan from his
flat on his iPhone. the dramatic footage was posted on social media and re-used by websites and
television worldwide. these videos shot using mobile phones – often vertical or square in aspect
ratio – defined the early stages of coverage long before professional television cameras were able
to get to the scene.
Figure 2.18. Screenshots (L–R) from Le Monde, Periscope, and Vine videos.
Videos published on 13 November 2015
within hours, teams of journalists descended on Paris providing wall-to-wall coverage on radio, tv,
print, and through websites. video coverage played a key role and in the next section we explore
how one major news provider deployed video on its news website and through social media.
tHe caSe OF tHe bbc
during the Paris attacks, the bbc’s newsgathering operation was servicing two 24-hour tv news
channels, two continuous news radio channels, and its well-regarded online news operation. in
terms of online audiences, the day of the attacks was the highest-ever traffic day online for the
bbc with video playing a prominent part. So what was the bbc trying to do and how effective was
its online video output?
Production
the bbc published 175 pieces of on-demand video about the Paris attacks on its own website in
the week beginning 13 November 2015. it also live-streamed its tv and radio output throughout
the event. we do not have the numbers for the live-streaming, only for on-demand video content.
On social media, the bbc posted 41 Facebook video clips over the same period, 22 clips on
twitter using twitter native player, and 31 clips on Youtube.
Figure 2.19. Number of online videos posted to each platform (13th–20th Nov.)
60
Publication on site
Facebook
45
Youtube
twitter
30
15
0
daY 1
daY 2
daY 3
daY 4
daY 5
Sources: BBC, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter analytics, 13th–20th Nov. 2015
19
daY 6
daY 7
daY 8
Consumption
as we saw previously in this chapter, on a typical day 11% of unique browsers on the bbc website
or app watch a video. For the day following the attacks (14 November 2015), the share of users
watching video almost doubled to 19% on the website and 22% via the bbc News app. this oneday peak was not related to the volume of clips produced, since this was higher on subsequent
days, but rather it was due to the compelling nature of the video footage itself. it seems that video
is a more important part of the mix in the first 24 hours of a big breaking news story.
Figure 2.20. Unique browsers to BBC News website vs unique browsers consuming video (13–20 Nov.)
40,000,000
total unique
browsers
unique
browsers
consuming
video
20,000,000
0
13th Nov
14th Nov
15th Nov
16th Nov
17th Nov
18th Nov
19th Nov
20th Nov
Source: BBC, 13th–20th Nov. 2015
breaking down these video views further, we can see that the majority of consumption (99 million
views) came via Facebook with 15 million on the bbc site and about 2 million views on Youtube.
we don’t have reliable figures for twitter, though we can see the most viewed and shared videos.
However, it is important to note that most of the Facebook traffic (72 million views) came from a
single viral video and this distorts the overall picture.
Figure 2.21. Online news video views per platform (13–20 Nov.)
80,000,000
bbc website
Facebook
Youtube
40,000,000
0
daY 1
daY 2
daY 3
daY 4
20
daY 5
daY 6
daY 7
daY 8
taking out this single video, we can see the underlying story more clearly. Figure 2.22 shows how
Facebook delivered ten times as many video views as the bbc on the night of the actual attacks
but then settled down to delivering about the same number of views as on-site. this confirms
research that shows that social media tends to be the most important destination in the first hours
of a dramatic news story with attention then switching to websites for more considered analysis
and context.
Figure 2.22. Online news video views per platform excluding viral video (13–20 Nov.)
12,000,000
bbc website
Facebook
Youtube
6,000,000
0
daY 1
daY 2
daY 3
daY 4
daY 5
daY 6
daY 7
daY 8
in terms of viewing time, the average length of a clip was three minutes and since the average
watch is 50% (90 seconds) of the overall video, that gives a total of 22.5 million minutes on the
website. this is compared with 54 million minutes for one clip on Facebook and 10.8 million
minutes for everything else. the average view time on Facebook was 25 seconds, which is about a
third of that achieved on the bbc site.
Viral videos
as previously mentioned, one viral video provided more video views than the rest of the coverage
put together. this was inspired by a Facebook message to the iS killers from antoine leiris,
husband of the one of the victims. the bbc reworked the post into a 90-second video made for
mobile video with subtitles and music.
Figure 2.23. Screenshot of a BBC video on Facebook. Video published on 18 November 2015
21
with 72 million views, 4 million likes, 1.5 million shares, and 300,000 comments, the video quickly
pushed into Facebook’s algorithm and into everyone’s feed, the number of interactions helping to
trigger the so-called viral effect (digiday, 2015a). the post also did well on the bbc site (600,000
views) and on Youtube, but the Facebook effect was by far the strongest. according to the bbc’s
digital director James Montgomery, ‘People were in some way responding emotionally … sharing it
out of empathy. […] it was bound to draw interest, but i think the repackaging for mobile definitely
helped.’10
it is worth noting that the average Facebook viewer watched only one-third of the video while the
average bbc and Youtube viewer watched around three-quarters.
Which type of video worked?
content analysis of all on-site and Facebook videos revealed some interesting insights into which
types of videos worked on-site and off-site in terms of length.11 confirming our earlier findings,
videos that are shorter than one minute had more views both off-site and on-site (on average).
Figure 2.24. Average views and completion rates of BBC Paris attacks videos by length
900,000
800,000
700,000
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
under 1 minute
Over 1 minute
bbc website
Facebook
Source: BBC, 13th–20th Nov. 2015, n = 158
Facebook
completion
2.5 Overview of Results
by using all these data sources, we can see that online news video is still a minority activity,
especially on-site. while the share of users watching video on-site is relatively low, its importance
increases significantly during breaking news events. chartbeat data show that 97.5% of time spent
on ten news publishers’ websites is still focused around text. Survey results also show that there is
a widespread preference for text, with video avoiders citing the desire for control as well as
technological and advertising barriers. Off-site video tends to be watched more in countries with
high social media news use and by younger groups. the type of video that is consumed off-site is
short, emotional, and texted. the vast majority of videos on the bbc Paris case were not watched
to the end when viewed on Facebook. Our content analysis showed that even among news
publishers, a significant proportion of the most successful Facebook videos relate to entertainment
or lifestyle. videos that usually work in breaking news situations are also short and have no
narration or anyone talking about the story. these findings bring us to the next chapters that
examine how different publishers draw their production and monetisation strategies for on-site and
platform-distributed video.
10
11
James Montgomery, bbc, interviewed by Nic Newman and antonis Kalogeropoulos on 22/03/2016.
For all of these analyses, we had the population of n = 158 for on-site videos and n = 40 for Facebook videos. we
filtered out the local on-site videos (for wales, Northern ireland, and Scotland) that were broadcasted only in the local
pages of the bbc, four videos that were not online anymore, and the Facebook video ‘i won’t give you the gift of
hating you’ that received 72 million views and would skew the results.
22
3. Production and Distribution Strategies
as already noted, online video is an increasing focus for news organisations as they look to
increase engagement and drive new revenues. but how are news organisations adapting to the
demands of online video in terms of production and distribution? in this chapter, we highlight the
challenges and opportunities faced by three types of news outlet: broadcasters, legacy print
outlets, and digital-born players. the analysis is drawn from more than 30 interviews with news
executives and heads of video departments. the case studies featured have been chosen to
reflect a variety of perspectives and to be indicative of the news industry, but of course they do not
capture every possible scenario. Some organisations that are not mentioned in this chapter are
highlighted in the following chapter on monetisation. all the discussions have helped us gain a
clearer understanding of the range of production and distribution strategies being used.
3.1 Newspapers
early newspaper investment focused on producing tv-style programming rather than adopting a
native approach to online video. the Washington Post, the New York Times, Spiegel, the Wall
Street Journal, and the Financial Times set up tv studios and many launched regular video shows
and broadcast programmes. ‘at the beginning, we just made the mistake everybody does with
that: we just took tv and put it into the internet, but it doesn't work like that,’ admits Sven
christian12 from Spiegel. Most newspapers have since changed strategy, with the majority
downplaying tv-style production for a broader set of approaches that encompass short-form
news, social video, documentaries, and immersive storytelling such as virtual reality (vr).
Significant challenges have emerged around the hiring of journalists with the right skills, the
organisation of teams, and around the need to adapt the newsroom workflow to include video in
the commissioning process right from the start. the Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal, the
Washington Post, Die Welt, and The Economist represent how differently legacy print organisations
engage with the challenges of learning to create, package, and distribute news video.
tHe TELEGRAPh (uK)
a team of about eight journalists provide the website with a steady stream of news videos each
day. they are not traditional journalists you might find in a broadcast newsroom; rather, they are
multi-skilled producers and editors using off-the-shelf software packages like adobe Premiere.
they have developed a series of distinctive native formats, ways of packaging video that can be
repeated efficiently and these can be summed up as follows:
•
•
•
•
12
in 60 seconds
in quotes
How the internet reacted
by numbers
Sven christian, Spiegel, interviewed by Nic Newman on 23/10/2015.
23
these heavily templated formats allow each video to be created in as little as 20 minutes but also
allow journalists to focus on the content itself. throughout the day, a video news editor is in charge
of selecting and commissioning stories and overseeing the producers, acting as the link between
the video department and the rest of the editorial team. in recent months, there has been much
more focus on social video and on Facebook in particular. beyond news, the Telegraph is looking
to develop lifestyle content in motoring, art, fashion, beauty, and technology, with a separate team
producing sponsored content for brands. the idea is to build a business worth £10 million within
three years (the Media briefing, 2015). ‘i think the key is next year and beyond will be about
accelerating away from tv and thinking really clearly about what defines us from television news,’
says Head of video, edward adams, who was recruited from broadcaster itv. ‘How do we make
stuff really stand out as telegraph content rather than any other content.’13
tHe GUARDIAN (uK, uS aNd auStralia)
the Guardian runs a team of more than 30 people working in london, New
York and Sydney, reflecting new editor Kath viner’s strong interest in
developing new forms of storytelling. the heart of the operation is providing
news to illustrate and embed in web pages: ‘everyone at the bare minimum
expects video now,’ says christian bennett, the Guardian’s global Head of
video. ‘if david cameron says something, people want to see david cameron saying that and
judge for themselves how he said that.’ beyond news, which is largely sourced from agencies, the
team produces one or two explainers each day and then original features that might involve
Guardian journalists shooting footage and take more time and resources. recent examples include
a series on politics beyond the westminster bubble by John Harries and John domokos and
Shakespeare solos, beautifully shot extracts from plays, read by famous actors. these may not
make money but do help build an identity that matches the values of the wider brand.
Offsite social video is also an increasingly important part of the mix, although the Guardian has
found that each platform requires a different approach. columnist Owen Jones has a hugely
successful Youtube channel where he runs long and often personal videos as well as having
conversations with fans and subscribers. Facebook requires a different approach again, where
videos need to be shorter, more attention grabbing and more playful: ‘we've even had
conversations … about how videos offsite have to be louder than onsite 'cause it's just a more
noisy place’, says bennett.
tHe WALL STREET JoURNAL (uSa/iNterNatiONal)
the video team at the Wall Street Journal is fully embedded with reporting
desks in New York, San Francisco, washington, Hong Kong, and london.
the team has video journalists as well as video editors and producers. Wall
Street Journal reporters who find themselves in a breaking news situation
are expected to shoot video directly from their phones, but in most cases
the video desk works on a planned schedule. in terms of formats, short videos are among those
that work best for the Wall Street Journal. ‘we've gotten away from long-form documentary style
storytelling,’ says global Head of video, andy regal. ‘in the digital space, we find that people are
more inclined to want to be seeing things in shorter durations.’14 the Wall Street Journal video
content is distributed among more than 30 platforms with all content on-site in front of the paywall
because of the higher advertising premiums. the paper has recently been experimenting with
different formats and it was the first uS newspaper to join Snapchat discover in January 2016. the
Wall Street Journal is among those organisations that saw the potential of video early and has
made a strategic and long-term investment.
13
14
edward adams, telegraph Media group, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 09/12/2015.
andy regal, Wall Street Journal, interviewed by Federica cherubini on 09/03/2016.
24
tHe WAShINGToN PoST (uSa)
Posttv was an early foray into video in 2013 with a live channel that aimed
to be the ‘eSPN of politics’ (calderone, 2013). with the project burning
cash and failing to meet targets, the Washington Post pivoted its strategy in
September 2015, rebranding its efforts washington Post video and
investing in shorter content for various platforms while abandoning the longform shows. the new washington Post video team, led by Micah gelman,
consists of 40 people, all embedded in different newsroom sections and part of the commissioning
process of a story from the start. ten of them are video reporters who go out on assignment, with
the rest managers and video editors. the team produces content customised for each of the
different platforms they are on. Stories for Facebook, for example, have text overlay and are
designed to work without sound. ‘we are thinking of each platform as a unique ecosystem and not
trying to force one type of content down the line,’ says gelman.15
DIE WELT (gerMaNY)
in december 2013, the german media group axel Springer acquired the
24-hour television news channel N24 with the aim of integrating with the Die
Welt news website as a multimedia powerhouse (axel Springer, 2013).
despite still being separate teams, the web video units at N24 and Die Welt
work closely together. antje lorenz at N24 runs a team of six people (four
editors and two freelancers) while Oliver rasche’s team at Die Welt has eight permanent staff plus
five freelancers and is tasked with publishing online news video on all of Die Welt’s platforms. N24
is not the only source of video content for Die Welt, rasche explains, but it is definitely the most
important one.16 Multimedia producers curate the full process of the publication of online videos,
from editing to adding headlines and text: ‘this is a kind of job we didn’t have before. it’s
completely new and they are developing or defining their role in a whole new way,’ says antje
lorenz. each morning, rasche and lorenz get together and plan their digital coverage for the day,
keeping an eye on what is trending on social media and optimising the content for each platform.
the strategic importance of video at Die Welt is reflected in the role it plays in its internal analytics
system (cherubini and Nielsen, 2016). the outlet has devised an ‘article score’ by which all
published articles are ranked. the score is made up of five criteria: pageviews, time spent on the
article page, video views, social shares, and bounce rate.
ThE ECoNoMIST (iNterNatiONal weeKlY NewS MagaZiNe)
The Economist has been experimenting with video for many years, but has
only recently found a strategy that works from an editorial and commercial
point of view. One key question for executives was whether video should be
a complementary ‘side-salad’ to the text article or a ‘video-version’ of it.
eventually they realised it doesn’t have to be either: ‘it doesn’t have to be
related to the print product in any way,’ says deputy editor, tom Standage. ‘it doesn’t have to be
derived from it. it can just be what it is. So the first thing was breaking the link with the weekly
[newspaper].’17 Now, there is a single video unit which is a merger of the team behind economist
Films – 15-minute mini-documentaries with high production values – and a team focused on short
explainers made for social media.
another important aspect of The Economist’s approach to video was to find its own distinctive
voice. their video is presenter-less, global, comparative, data-driven, and with a little bit of humour.
15
Micah gelman, the Washington Post, interviewed by Federica cherubini on 22/02/2016.
Oliver rasche and antje lorenz, Die Welt and N24, interviewed by Federica cherubini and antonis Kalogeropoulos on
01/03/2016.
17
tom Standage, The Economist, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 21/03/2016.
16
25
‘if you put all those together, it feels like The Economist,’ says Standage. Over the next year, the
economist plans to produce vr documentaries and a daily video feature that will be two to five
minutes long and will be branded espresso tv (Swant, 2016).
Table 3.1. Newspaper data
Publication
No. of people
working on online
news video
No. of videos
produced daily
Off-site focus
Main strategies
Telegraph
7/8 producers,
editors plus a
features/brand
team
30 news pieces +
bespoke series
Facebook video
News focus +
lifestyle content for
advertisers
Guardian
30 working across
video and audio
20 news pieces +
features
Facebook
experiments,
Youtube
News + distinctive
features
Wall Street Journal
45–50, but varies
on the time of the
year
30–40 on average
Facebook +
Snapchat discover
channel
Short-form video
news + explainers
Washington Post
40 producers
embedded on
reporting desks
around the world
50 videos
Facebook focus
customising stories
for different
platforms
Die Welt (N24)
20 producers and
editors split across
the 2 brands
at least 70 videos
Facebook focus
News focus,
reusing N24
content
The Economist
Postdoctoral
research Scientist
in computational
biology
less than one a
day but more when
espresso tv
launches
Facebook and
Youtube
Quality content with
distinctive tone
NB: These data were provided by publishers in good faith but in some cases are incomplete or hard to compare. Key strategies are just
a snapshot and should not be taken as a comprehensive strategic picture. The number of videos will vary by day and month and the
number of people working on online video is particularly hard to estimate in many organisations where roles are converged.
3.2 Broadcasters
broadcasters have access to video skills, equipment, and a considerable amount of content,
including archive footage and trained video journalists on the ground. but the transition from
broadcast to online video has not always been easy. the following cases of two uK (itv News and
the bbc) and two uS broadcasters (Fox News and cNN) reflect the landscape of digital video in
broadcasters that differ in size and output (with a domestic and global focus).
itv NewS (uK)
the focus for online video at itv News is to move away from pushing television
packages online and instead to create more immediate and authentic mobile
video: ‘television packages are fantastically polished, creative narratives that
work for tv, but it doesn’t mean they’re going to work for online,’ says Head of
digital, Jason Mills. ‘radio doesn’t work on tv. Newspapers don’t work on
radio. it’s just a whole new model, really.’18 at itv News, social and mobile18
26
friendly videos are created by social video producers. their main job is to take a couple of the main
stories of the day from the tv channel and turn them into 30- to 40-second videos, as well as to
monitor trending stories that may work online-only. they are also experimenting with
correspondents filming directly on mobile phones, either putting them out raw – through Facebook
live and Periscope – or adding simple infographics. alongside Facebook, itv News also produces
video stories for instagram and occasionally for twitter. the length of all these stories varies
according to the platform: 15 seconds for instagram, 20 to 25 seconds for twitter, and anything up
to a minute for Facebook. Story selection will also vary with fun, soft stories working better on
instagram than serious news, Mills explained. itv News’ social strategy at the moment focuses on
engagement and brand extension, rather than direct monetisation.
FOx NewS (uSa)
the key focus is to reuse existing tv content with the vast majority of videos
posted online (90%) taken from the Fox News channel or Fox business
Network, with the remaining 10% of original content produced specifically for
digital: ‘we have this great repository of what is possibly considered the greatest
cable news network in the country, and to not use that content would almost be
a sin,’ director of digital video Operations, brian Korner explains in an
interview.19 tv segments or debates tend to be cut up into longer chunks (90%), whereas the
original online content (10%) is shorter and focuses more on softer news like leisure and lifestyle
pieces or food-related topics. in addition, the mobile/social media video tends to be different from
desktop:
We find that there's kind of a sweet spot in about a five-minute clip for browser-based.
When you go to mobile-based, or social media-based, the sweet spot gets a lot shorter. In
the case of Twitter or Facebook apps, you've got seconds to engage them, and then
hopefully you can keep them around for two minutes. But that's about what you've got.20
Korner sees a future that combines appointment-to-view television bulletins with ‘an anchor sitting
at the desk’ with a much more tailored video on-demand service delivered through apps and online
media. ‘i think the future of all online video is on-demand. People want it when they want it.’ He
believes that time-shifted programmes (vOd) from Fox News personalities such as Megyn Kelly will
be the future for Fox News digital video.
cNN (uS aNd glObal NewS NetwOrK)
at cNN digital, ryan Smith, Supervising Producer for digital video, looks after
the international arm of the digital video business. His team of editors, video
journalists, and producers select, edit, and produce content to be posted online
and distributed via all cNN digital platforms. they are multi-skilled journalists
who can shoot videos and write scripts, as well as edit them. the team operates in close cooperation with tv, not only selecting the most appropriate content from the 24-hour channel and
tailoring to the web, but also participating in the commissioning process: ‘a lot of the time i give
guidance to correspondents and producers going out into the field to try and make their video as
friendly to those other formats as possible,’ Smith explains.21 while cNN has a great brand, a key
internal challenge, he says, is to change the mindset from being a traditional television-based
organisation to a television- and digital-based one. at cNN digital, online video is versioned for
desktop, mobile, and social: ‘the way you consume your news is very different on every screen to
19
brian Korner, Fox News, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 17/03/2016.
ibid.
21
ryan Smith, cNN digital, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 18/02/2016.
20
27
me, and i think this is where the industry is going now. before, we considered digital video as one
video and made a video that fitted all, hopefully all devices. Now we’re trying to break that down a
little bit.’22
cNN desktop video is designed to complement text. Smith says the sweet spot for desktop videos
is around 90 seconds in terms of completion rates. by contrast, mobile video tends to be half that
length and needs to work in a standalone context. Social video is treated differently again because
of the highly competitive context of a Facebook feed. ‘it’s going to autoplay, so what you need to
do is you need to get straight into something impactful.’23
bbc (uK aNd glObal NewS NetwOrK)
the bbc has one of the largest video newsgathering operations in the world, so it is not surprising
that it is looking to capitalise on its experience with moving pictures. as with other broadcasters
though, the key challenge may be to break away from a broadcast mentality, as digital director for
bbc News James Montgomery explains:
The BBC used to take the broadcast output, cut it into small pieces and sprinkle it
somewhat randomly on digital platforms. We know now, particularly because of the rise of
mobile, which stretches the difference between the television experience and the primary
digital experience, that’s not really enough.24
One of the most significant new initiatives of 2016 relates to the creation of a new mobile video
experience, initially for the bbc News app, called ten to watch. inspired by Snapchat and twitter
Moments, it features vertical video, texted video, and much shorter durations. ‘there is an
interesting study,’ says Montgomery, ‘that [shows that] people actually absorb information more
quickly on a mobile phone because they’re concentrating a bit more. So they can get through it
faster. duration absolutely matters because broadly speaking, shorter is better. although i
sometimes caveat it, ultimately it’s not really about duration, it’s about how long you can hold the
user’s attention.’25 editorial project lead Nathalie Malinarich says the bbc is still learning about
what works with mobile video: ‘People aren’t sitting at home thinking i’m going to spend an hour in
front of the tv. You need to hook them in straightaway, your storytelling needs to be very tight.’26
beyond mobile video, the bbc continues to experiment with social video to reach out to audiences
not prepared to come to the website itself. it has pioneered new short-form videos for networks
like instagram, vine, and line, while the bbc trending brand looks to source and distribute stories
through social media. a key issue now is to improve legacy technology systems to make it quicker
to move video assets from broadcast to the website, not just in english but also through its output
in almost 30 languages.
22
ibid.
ibid.
24
James Montgomery, bbc, interviewed by Nic Newman and antonis Kalogeropoulos on 22/03/2016.
25
ibid.
26
Nathalie Malinarich, bbc, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 04/02/2016.
23
28
Table 3.2. Broadcaster data
Broadcaster
No. of people
working on online
news video
No. of videos
produced daily
Off-site focus
Main strategies
itv News
One dedicated person,
with occasional
support from digital
producers
3–4, and 5 with text
straps
Facebook
Short social video
Fox News
around 20 staff
300 from Fox News
channel, Fox business
Network, and online
original content
Facebook,
twitter
re-purposing tv
content
cNN
10–20 people a day
are assigned to digital
video, excluding digital
producers and social
media specialists
at least 20 ‘digital
originals’ per day
across departments
Facebook,
instagram, and
Snapchat
3-platform strategy:
desktop, mobile,
and social
bbc
dozens of online video 30 videos per day (ten
specialists +
to watch output) with
thousands of videodozens more news
capable journalists and
clips on web and
producers
social channels
Facebook,
instagram. You
tube, and
others
Mobile video
initiative +
multilingual
reversioning
3.3 Pure Players
digital-born outlets are not burdened by legacy, and with a high propensity to take risk as they try
to break into a very competitive market, some of them are playing a leading role in both video
format and business model innovation. Of all the digital players, buzzFeed has so far made the
most impact and some of the biggest investments. Hundreds of video producers work at the
buzzFeed Motion Picture Studios in los angeles where they have been perfecting long- and shortform video formats that demand to be shared. with a culture oriented towards endless
experimentation, buzzFeed has innovated around news and launched new lifestyle channels such
as tasty, a cooking channel, which was the number one video publisher on Facebook in October
2015 with 1 billion views (Marketingland, 2015). buzzFeed is also moving into long-form content
and television, as is the youth-oriented media company vice, which plans to launch 20 tv
channels across the world in 2016 along with six more digital networks (Spangler, 2016). at the
same time, it is important to separate these initiatives, which are largely focused on lifestyle content
from news itself. For this study, we focused on our interviews with aJ+, Fanpage, and Nowthis,
three of the most innovative companies working with news and factual content. these cases
reflect two organisations (aJ+ and Nowthis) that are almost exclusively occupied with online news
videos, and Fanpage, a successful italian digital-born news organisation.
29
aJ+ (uS-baSed YOutH-FOcuSed NetwOrK)
Many of our interviewees cited aJ+, founded in September 2014, as a source of
inspiration when it comes to online video. aJ+ is a digital spin-off from al Jazeera,
focusing on building audiences through social platforms rather than investing in
their own apps and websites. the content is created to be short, shareable, and
mobile-first.
by January 2016, aJ+ employed 70 people in their content team producing around 50 videos a
week, most of which are around a minute long or less (digiday, 2015b). through Facebook alone,
aJ+ delivered 2.2 billion video views in 2015, around half of which were 30-second views. they
currently produce between ten and 12 videos a day for Facebook: ‘we are creating content for
each individual platform and thinking about the user experience in each platform, based on [the
fact] that it optimises the product and the experience,’ explained executive Producer, Michael
Shagoury.27 all the videos produced by aJ+ come from a mix of agency footage, original material,
and user-generated content.
FaNPage (italY)
in italy, legacy print media companies have traditionally held the lion’s share in
the online market through their digital offshoots. when it comes to social
presence though, a pure player like Fanpage.it, with its more than 5 million
followers on Facebook, is clearly ahead of the game with over twice the figures
of the two main news organisations corriere della Sera and repubblica. Fanpage focuses mainly
on entertainment videos and soft news, but it also covers breaking news and more serious topics
like the problem of toxic waste in the region around Naples. the common point of all their
coverage is always trying to maintain Fanpage’s tone of voice. ‘[in our coverage] we’re really trying
to make something that’s unique,’ explains editor-in-chief, Francesco Piccinini.28 during the
demonstrations against same-sex civil partnerships, held in italy in January 2016, Fanpage created
a video in which it asked rally participants provocative questions about homophobia, and edited
them together in a humorous way, leading to more than 4 million views overall. video reporters at
Fanpage are responsible for producing the entire product, i.e. shooting as well as editing their own
videos. the site has a dedicated video team for Facebook and also distributes content via
Youtube, instagram, twitter, and google+.
NOwtHiS (uS-baSed)
another outlet frequently mentioned as an example of best
practice in online video is Nowthis, another distributed news
company. the company’s vision statement states this:
‘Homepage. even the word sounds old. we bring the news to
your social feed.’ ashish Patel, Senior vP of social media,
explained in an interview29 that the editorial strategy starts with
understanding the specifics of the audience on each platform.
Nowthis organises workflow around platform experts, hired to match the platform’s audience
profile and in total they produce between 50 and 60 pieces of content per day. Stories are selected
and packaged differently for each network. For example, Patel explained that hard news stories or
breaking news don’t do well on instagram, while world news is surprisingly popular via Snapchat,
Michael Shagoury, aJ+, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 02/03/2016.
Francesco Piccinini, Fanpage, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 25/02/2016.
29 ashish Patel, Nowthis, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 23/02/2015.
27
28
30
which has the youngest demographic. Speaking at a journalism conference, Newsrewired, in
March 2016, Patel identified four key criteria for a successful social video strategy: 1) create videos
that don’t require audio; they should default to mute; 2) ensure that the first five seconds are
compelling, especially given that 70% of the people are on mobile; 3) look at and learn from key
data points, such as completion rates and the worst-performing stories, rather than trying to
replicate viral hits; and 4) remember that emotion drives the video shares (Newsrewired.com,
2016).
Table 3.3. Digital-born data
Digital-born
company
No. of people
working on online
news video
No. of videos
produced daily
Off-site focus
Main strategies
aJ+
the whole team of
around 70 people
10–12
Facebook and
more
distributed short
videos, explainers
Fanpage
around 15 staff
between 10 and 12
videos a day
Facebook and
more
distributed short
videos, humour
Nowthis
the whole team of
around 40
50–60
Facebook and 8
other platforms
distributed short
videos, humour
31
3.5 Strategic and Organisational Challenges
the three types of outlets analysed – newspapers, broadcasters, and pure players – all come from
different perspectives, bear different legacies, and face different challenges. what newspapers and
pure players have in common is that they are both new to video and therefore need to build
capacity and skills from scratch. digital-born companies have generally had access to capital
funding to invest, whereas newspapers, in a period of retrenchment, have found it far more
challenging to find new money. broadcasters should be in the best position to take advantage of
the move to video with a wealth of relevant skills and footage at their disposal, but in many cases
we find them struggling to adapt to the new grammar of digital online video. they are under
pressure to maximise the impact of their existing investments, hence the focus in interviews on reversioning tv. as many of our interviewees have pointed out, this presents a significant cultural
challenge which leaves them open to disruption from competitors better able to take risks about
new formats and new forms of social distribution.
in terms of organisation and resources, it is hard to define a clear pattern given the range of
experimentation and the fast rate of change. Many news organisations start their journey by hiring
one or two video specialists as a response to an emerging opportunity. this often develops into a
specific team with responsibility to develop best practice, though this team is often isolated and
operates independently from the rest of the newsroom. at a later stage, once value is proved,
strategic investments are made in online video technology with journalists trained in mobile video
and new storytelling techniques. For a few news organisations, the strategy is clearly articulated
from the top and is connected to the wider mission and business models. at the New York Times,
Mark thompson made video an important part of the strategy soon after his arrival as ceO, while
James Harding at the bbc has personally championed the ten to watch mobile video project.
leadership has also been a key factor at the Wall Street Journal: ‘credit goes to the highest-ups
here, including our editor-in-chief gerry baker, who saw video for what it was a number of years
ago,’ says Head of video, andy regal, who says this helped give the Wall Street Journal a head
start: ‘video is a fully integrated, fully realised aspect of the journalism conducted here.’30 Many
digital-born companies, like buzzFeed, moved rapidly into video following a series of experiments
but underwent the same kind of process with a separate video team before integrating learning
throughout the organisation (Küng, 2015).
PrOduciNg iN MultiPle FOrMatS: ‘it’S exPeNSive tO be everYwHere’
One common theme which came up in interviews with different types of media company is that a
‘one size fits all video’ is no longer an option. there is recognition that each platform requires a
different approach even if it is often hard to deliver in an efficient manner. ‘it is expensive to be
everywhere,’ says dr Yaser bishr, executive director of Strategy and corporate development at al
Jazeera Media Network,31 pointing out that each network requires a different length or a different
treatment. al Jazeera is actively looking into technologies and companies that can simplify
workflow and reduce cost. Organisations like the bbc are also finding a real problem in quickly and
efficiently delivering more broadcast content online with the necessary metadata so it can be easily
found and shared. Print organisations unable to invest in a large production team are also looking
to find better technology solutions to simplify the process. the italian regional publishing house of
gruppo l’espresso uses software from wochit to produce a large number of videos each day with
a relative small investment in terms of resources. the software lets you use copyright-cleared
content from news agencies like reuters, as well as upload your own content to the platform.
Photos or videos are packaged, in a mix of automation and human curation, and animated by the
30
31
andy regal, wall Street Journal, interviewed by Federica cherubini on 09/03/2016.
dr Yaser bishr, digital Media Strategies conference, london, March 2016.
32
software, which also lets you add graphics and the organisation’s logo. Meanwhile, an efficient and
sophisticated content management system has been at the heart of the success of digital-born
Nowthis. the Switchboard system allows producers to assemble footage semi-automatically,
publish the content directly onto social feeds, and includes predictive analytics to drive future
coverage. an insights team monitors how videos perform and feeds data back to producers and
editors. while all media companies are looking to make production more efficient, it is digital-born
outlets that tend to place technology and data at the heart of their strategies, focusing on in-house
solutions to provide competitive advantage. traditional providers tend to focus on third-party
technical solutions, looking more to journalistic talent, creativity, and heritage to create
distinctiveness.
Overall we find that some of the most successful organisations in the video arena tend to have the
following key characteristics: 1) clear, focused strategies and a leadership that is committed to
video; 2) investment in native online video skills and strong support for creativity and innovation
within those teams; and 3) investment in appropriate technology, tools, and efficient workflow to
support those teams and strategies.
Figure 3.1. Video playbook: ingredients for success
Source: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2016
Future develOPMeNtS
across the board, we see a considerable degree of consensus – and focus – around the
importance of short-form social and mobile video, but such is the speed of change it is quite
possible this will look very different in a year’s time. at the same time as brands like the Huffington
Post were abandoning live streaming coverage at the beginning of the year, Facebook stepped up
its efforts around ‘live video’. Once again, publishers are now being encouraged, in some cases
paid, to create live experiences. Facebook says that live broadcasts attract ten times more
comments than regular videos, but it is not clear how long this will last (Newswhip, 2016). there is
a clear risk that news organisations will end up overly dependent on platforms and changes to their
strategies, which they are unable to influence.
in this respect, it is interesting to note that while some publishers like Nowthis are concentrating
on scale in distributed media, others like The Economist, the New York Times and the Guardian are
pursuing distinctiveness. the New York Times has been focusing on long-form series, such as the
‘Fine line’ about Olympic athletes and the ‘inside track’, which interviews pop stars about how
their hit songs were created. it has been a pioneer of vr, distributing google cardboard viewers to
33
around 1 million loyal subscribers. More recently, the Guardian has launched its first vr project,
‘6x9: a virtual experience of solitary confinement’, which takes readers into a uS solitary
confinement prison cell and tells the story of the psychological damage that can ensue from
isolation (the Guardian, 2016). the Guardian created two versions of the project: the vr version is
available through the guardian vr app and a 360-degree video is available for people who don’t
have vr headsets (bilton, 2016). these investments are not for the faint-hearted with partnerships
and major sponsorships the order of the day. the video landscape becomes more complex and
more expensive with every passing day.
34
4. Monetisation Strategies
with the growing problems of display advertising around text, many media companies are looking
at online video as a new way of driving revenues. the latest uK iab statistics show that video ad
spend is growing at 51% a year and now makes up almost a quarter (23%) of the total spend on
display (iab, 2015). in the uSa, digital video ad revenue was 4.2 billion dollars in 2015, up 30%
from 2014 (iab, 2016). However, it is not clear that news will benefit to the same extent as the
market in general, given 1) the often difficult subject matter; 2) consumer resistance to pre-roll
advertising; and 3) the dependence of off-site monetisation on Silicon valley product initiatives. it is
not surprising then that many publishers are eyeing other models such as sponsorship or creating
video production services for advertisers. For others still, the value of video is seen as more
indirect, helping to market specific services or attract new customers to the brand.
4.1 Direct Monetisation
according to iΑΒ data on uK video display, three-quarters (76%) of revenue in 2015 came from
pre- and post-roll advertising, with most of the rest coming from new ‘outstream’ in-read formats
that play video, for example between paragraphs of text (iab, 2015).
Figure 4.1. Digital ad revenues for video 2010–15
Source: IAB, 2015
However, publishers’ attitudes towards pre-roll advertising on online news videos are sharply
divided. ‘we think that pre-roll is one of the crummiest innovations of digital video, and certainly not
one that we wish to shower upon our readers,’ says xana antunes from Quartz: ‘can you imagine
a broadcaster forcing you to watch an ad every two and a half minutes? […] i am astonished to
even find myself having that conversation sometimes.’32
32
xana antunes, Quartz, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 26/02/2016.
35
these attitudes reveal larger differences in online news video strategies and the business models of
different news organisations. Quartz, for example, took the decision to focus on sponsored content
rather than display right from the beginning. For other publishers we interviewed, the objection was
less about the form and more about the practical application. Publishers feel that while they have
adapted their videos to the digital age, advertisers are lagging behind in adapting their creative:
‘the advertising business has not caught up yet with the changing nature of audience interaction,’
says Jason Mills at itv News. ‘where are the five-second pre-rolls?’33 industry bodies like the iab
say advertisers are now responding with shorter formats, but cNN’s ryan Smith says this is still
not fast enough: ‘it can still be frustrating: a 30-second pre-roll on a one-minute video is not
engaging for an audience. they’re going to look at it and think the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.’34
Many publishers recognise the damage pre-rolls may be doing but do not have the luxury to wait
for alternatives to emerge. No one has yet come up with anything as compelling from an
advertising perspective, says alison gow from trinity Mirror: ‘what we know, right now, is that
advertisers are happy with pre-rolls. it's what they want. the consumer is fairly familiar with
them.’35 italian start-up Fanpage uses pre-rolls extensively and editor-in-chief Francesco Piccinini
is unapologetic: ‘it is fair. broadcasters put three or four ads before the one o’clock news [...] i can
put it at the beginning of my video.’36
despite this defiance, there are a number of reasons why pre-roll may not be sustainable in the
long term. Firstly, cPMs (cost per thousand impressions) are likely to fall as supply of online video
increases, though data from ad tech company Sizmek (see Figure 4.2) suggests this trend may
already be underway, though there is still a clear premium over other forms of display such as
banners.
Figure 4.2. Video CPMs vs general CPMs 2015–16 (Europe, Middle East, and Africa)
0.4
0.35
0.3
video (Pre-roll,
post-roll etc.)
0.25
$
general display
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
2014
Q1
2014
Q2
2014
Q3
2014
Q4
2015
Q1
2015
Q2
2015
Q3
2015
Q4
2016
Q1
Source: Sizmek Open ad platform, 2016
Note: These CPMs represent tech costs, which are typically 5–10% of actual cost to advertisers. Publishers will be receiving much
higher CPMs than listed here. The general trends, however, should be indicative of a) the premium that in-stream ads secure and b)
changes in both in-stream and general CPMs over time.
33
35
alison gow, trinity Mirror, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 9/12/2015.
36
Francesco Piccinini, Fanpage, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 25/02/2016.
34
36
a second reason for caution relates to the move towards off-site consumption. Facebook has ruled
out the use of pre-roll ads in the news feed and is looking to encourage consumers to view a
number of videos in a row (via its ‘suggested videos’ feature). Some ads will then be shown
between videos, with revenues split between publishers and Facebook (griffith, 2015). although
testing is still continuing and revenues are still relatively low, Mark Melling from aOl europe
suggests these are developments publishers cannot ignore:
Facebook isn't going anywhere and we know that the monetisation will come. You could
say the same thing about YouTube. You could say, ‘Well, YouTube didn't have a
monetisation strategy, why would you put video on there?’ And whoever didn’t do it got left
out in the cold.37
Many publishers are building their audience now on Facebook and other social platforms in the
hope and belief that the money will come. as John Pullman from thompson reuters said, ‘[video
on platforms] is the big issue of the industry today. are we going to get money from Facebook and
other platforms? it is something that occupies all our minds all the time.’38 but there are no
guarantees, particularly given that success will require audiences to watch multiple videos using
patterns that are not yet established. in turn, that requires enough compelling quality content which
is why Facebook is currently encouraging, and in some cases paying, publishers to produce it. it
remains to be seen if this is in the long-term interests of publishers.
4.2 Branded or Sponsored Content
an alternative path for monetisation in general has been the growth of branded and sponsored
content, notably pursued by digital-born companies like buzzFeed, vice, and Quartz. buzzFeed is
heavily reliant on so-called ‘native advertising’ and 35% of these revenues now come from video,
up from 15% in 2014 (Fast company, 2016). this is set to grow further with Facebook recently
announcing that it would allow native video ads from publishers labelled with a ‘sponsored by’
message (digiday, 2016). traditional media companies such as the Guardian and the New York
Times have also been investing in creating content for brands with g-labs and t-brand Studios
respectively. video is becoming an increasingly important part of these propositions according to
anna watkins, Managing director of g-labs (the drum, 2016):
Increasingly [we are] distributing our content off-platform, whether that’s Facebook Instant
Articles, whether that’s AOL On, whether that’s any of the other big tech players. So clearly,
that therefore means the formats are changing. There’s much more of an investment in
video.
branded content, which is often made by a media company but where the advertiser has editorial
control, can be distinguished from sponsored content where control normally remains with the
publisher. The Economist is one publisher that has embraced the latter route. as deputy editor
tom Standage explains, at The Economist it is always the editorial team that comes up with ideas
for videos they want to make and the sales team then pitches these ideas to sponsors:
We pre-approve a menu [of videos], and the order in which we make the things on the
37
38
Mark Melling, aOl europe, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 25/01/2016.
John Pullman, thompson reuters, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 02/03/2016.
37
menu depends on the availability of sponsorship, but the sponsors don't get to choose the
topics. There is no brand video […] Branded video is not journalism. It's fine to do it, but it's
just no longer editorial, it's no longer journalism.39
two recent examples of brands supporting sponsored video in The Economist are turkish airlines,
who signed up to sponsor a travel series called Passport, and ernst and Young, who will sponsor a
business series called The Disruptors.
Publishers going down the branded content route include Fanpage, the first outlet to do branded
video advertising in italy, and Nowthis, a uS-based digital-born video outlet, which is primarily
monetised through branded content. at Nowthis, these videos are created by a team that sits
separately from their editorial team, and the content is distributed over their channels as well as
through the channels belonging to the brand itself.
it is still early days, but one problem with relying too much on native advertising may relate to
scaling. Publishers we talked to emphasised the high cost of creating unique branded videos,
which by definition cannot be automated (and scaled) in the manner of a banner ad. it was recently
reported that one of the reasons why buzzFeed missed its 2015 revenue projections relates to
problems scaling its native advertising business model, while Nowthis is said to not be making a
profit yet (garrahan and Mance, 2016). branded and sponsored videos demand a considerable
amount of investment and they also put publishers in direct competition with advertisers (Herrman,
2016).
4.3 Marketing and Referrals
in our interviews, the most widely cited reason for publishers to invest in online news video,
especially off-site, is to engage people with their brand. as we saw in chapter 2, most online news
video consumption occurs off-site, in social media and especially on Facebook. while native video
on Facebook does not necessarily bring referrals back to the news website, successful videos can
bring more likes and comments, which in turn means that more people will see their links in the
future.
Other news organisations are using videos to cross-promote their products and services.
broadcasters like the bbc post marketing trailers to television and radio content while also using
native video to engage hard-to-reach younger audiences with public service content such as news
explainers. Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin creates short stylish Facebook video trailers for its
weekly print publication using easy-to-use iMovie software and has had some success in driving
print subscriptions. The Economist also sees the use of free video as a useful way of marketing its
paid-for services: ‘we hope that people will become educated about our brand and our products
and then subscribe. […] Posting free stuff on Facebook and twitter is the only way to tell people
what we do.’40
in one way or another, online video is becoming an important digital outrider for different business
models. it can drive revenues through sponsorship or advertising, and be used to cross-promote
other products or to feed a subscription funnel.
39
40
tom Standage, The Economist, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 21/03/2016.
ibid.
38
4.4 Metrics and Viewability
One area that is holding back growth of online advertising has been confusion over how to
measure and verify a view. ad fraud affects video as much as other forms of display, and off-site
platforms have different standards on how to measure a view. Facebook’s use of autoplay
combined with a video view count of three seconds opens the possibility of a large number of
inadvertent or disengaged plays. it also makes it hard for advertisers or publishers to compare
performance with Youtube, which counts a play after approximately 30 seconds.
Figure 4.3. Comparison of a video ‘view’ standard across different platforms
the difficulty in interpreting auto-playing Facebook views has meant that publishers are taking
more notice of other metrics, such as engagement numbers, to measure success, as xana
antunes from Quartz explains:
We find ourselves guessing how much of our audience meant to watch the video and how
much of the audience found itself watching it. But [that becomes clear] when you start
looking at metrics like Likes and Shares, which ultimately on Facebook are the determinant
of whether something succeeds or not.41
Other publishers have created dashboards which try to measure the level of engagement with
content. these may include time spent or the percentage of a video that is viewed: ‘the key stat is
the quality of a view,’ says ben Sinden, director of video content at the Telegraph, where other
indicators include retention rates and the number of videos watched in a session (the Media
briefing, 2015).
4.5 Virality: The New Norm
a particular difficulty with trying to build a business on the basis of off-site social video is the
unpredictable nature of consumption when compared with text and routine audiences in print and
broadcasts.
Our research into the Facebook video performance of two outlets – Nowthis and the Guardian –
shows that on some days, Facebook video consumption can be six or seven times higher than
during an average day (see Figures 4.4 and 4.5 overleaf). we counted the Facebook views per
video per day in January 2016; all the views for each video were assigned to the day of publishing
since there was no way to know how many views took place on subsequent days.
41
xana antunes, Quartz, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 26/02/2016.
39
Figure 4.4. Average Facebook views per video
per day for NowThis – January 2016
Figure 4.5. Average Facebook views per video
per day for the Guardian – January 2016
8,000,000
8,000,000
4,000,000
4,000,000
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17
0
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Source: Facebook page of NowThis, February 2016
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11
12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31
Source: Facebook page of the Guardian, February 2016
we could argue that the problems of virality also exist for text articles distributed through platforms
like Facebook. However, research by Newswhip (republished in tables 4.1 and 4.2 below) shows
that videos have much bigger peaks in terms of engagement. For publishers like the bbc, cNN,
and vox, the top five articles in terms of shares account for 2%, 4%, and 26% of the total shares,
respectively. when it comes to the videos, the top ones account for 54%, 65%, and 76% of the
total Facebook shares for videos. viral videos are not new; they have been a feature of other
platforms like Youtube for many years but the priortisation of video on Facebook and twitter and
the introduction of autoplay has increased the potential for accidental exposure.
Table 4.1. Top text articles as % of total in terms
of Facebook engagement in February 2016
Table 4.2. Top video posts as % of total videos in
terms of Facebook engagement in February 2016
Source: NewsWhip, based on content published in February 2016 Source: NewsWhip, based on content published in February 2016
these findings suggest a very different picture from the analogue world where tv bulletin ratings or
newspaper circulations were rather stable and spikes of 600% were almost unimaginable. chris
lunn, the bbc's Senior Product Manager, video, argues that the aim is to get a predictable
amount of video views per month for their international audience, and not rely on news spikes from
a revenue point of view.42 this is partly because spikes are often around sensitive news events that
brands and publishers would not want to place an ad on anyway. Mark Melling, the director of
video for aOl europe, does not panic about dips and spikes, given the unpredictable nature of
videos: ‘this is the new norm. and if something went viral today, it doesn’t mean it goes viral
tomorrow.’43
at cNN, ryan Smith agrees that spikes happen more often now, given the nature of the medium.
but cNN pays close attention to these spikes since they see them as an opportunity for brand
engagement:
I know roughly what my day-to-day audience is on an average day and I know when
something is peaking as well. So when that happens, our strategy definitely changes to
42
43
chris lunn, bbc, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 11/02/2016.
Mark Melling, aOl europe, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 25/01/2016.
40
reflect the peak and if it doesn’t, then you know you’re doing something wrong. […] It also
opens up a shop window to showcase the best of what you do. There’s an opportunity for
you to introduce people to the work that CNN does.44
Hence, rather than a problem, this variation in fluctuations of online news video consumption can
also be an opportunity for publishers to grow their audience and their reach, provided that they can
predict at least a minimum amount of views in a given time period.
4.6 Conclusion
in this chapter, we identified the main ways that publishers directly or indirectly monetise their video
news content. these include pre-roll advertising, post-roll advertising via Facebook’s suggested
videos, branded/sponsored video content, and using news video as a marketing tool to increase
reach and referrals back to destination websites. it remains early days for monetisation, with
publishers and advertisers trying to find the right balance between getting messages seen without
irritating audiences. video has the potential to capture attention and therefore revenue in a more
powerful way than text. video advertising spend is growing year on year, but so is the supply of
content, which may ultimately lower returns. the growth of off-site video offers new commercial
opportunities, but there are also hazards with unpredictable spikes and potential changes of
direction.
44
41
5. The Future of Online News Video
the big questions about the future of online news video relate to the shape of future growth in
terms of consumption, genres, platforms, and ultimately revenue too. How fast will growth be?
which formats will be most successful? where can money be made? in this fast-changing and
emerging story, it is impossible to answer these questions definitively, but this report has provided
some clues about what might happen in terms of supply and demand and the implications for
business models. currently, we see that growth in video is supply-driven, from platforms like
Facebook and from publishers who would like to seize the monetisation opportunity while
audiences are not yet wholeheartedly engaging with online news video.
we saw in chapter 2 that while technological barriers (speed, screen size, data cost) are not the
primary reasons why people do not watch online news video, they are still deterring a significant
number of people. we should expect, therefore, that usage will increase as internet connections on
mobile become faster and cheaper, and smartphone screens becoming larger. However, at the
same time, we find reasons for caution: a significant proportion of those currently avoiding news
videos (41%) think that reading articles is quicker and more convenient than watching news online,
and 19% feel that videos don’t add enough value to a text story. though new and more compelling
native formats are emerging, these two barriers to watching video may not be easy to tackle with
just changes in technology or distribution. while it could be argued that accidental exposure on
platforms such as Facebook will change perceptions, our surveys in 2015 and 2016 show that
these numbers have not significantly changed over the past 12 months. the comparison with last
year’s data is crucial, given the explosion in the supply of videos on Facebook in the course of
2015.
when it comes to the future of video as a revenue stream, we should also consider that the supply
of online news video is likely to grow at higher rates than consumption. indeed, we have evidence
that this is already the case. Media companies are increasing output rapidly and investing in new
skills. as more efficient production systems kick in (and this will include a high degree of
automation), this will further increase supply, which in turn will tend to reduce the returns generated
from each video. as chris lunn from the bbc puts it:
Everyone is putting a ton of money into it, and it is driven on the assumption there’s going to be
continued demand. But if we hit a point where that demand starts to be saturated or stable and
people don’t start seeing the return they expect, is there going to be the same investment?45
in terms of formats and content, more and more publishers are moving away from traditional
talking head videos and tv-style packages to create videos in the mould of aJ+, which are texted,
short, and have an intense beginning to capture audience attention. video content designed for
social networks often has an emotional hook and a positive message, and frequently uses the
same source material. with publishers following the same trends and publishing through the same
platforms, the challenge is increasingly how to stand out from the crowd in terms of content or
style. as andy regal from the Wall Street Journal says:
The challenge every day is to be distinctive, to be differentiated. […] After you read the
paper, or read the journalism online, you feel like you've had a distinctive experience that
you really can't get anywhere else. That's what we strive for in the video department […] to
create video journalism that is distinctive and differentiated.46
45
46
chris lunn, bbc, interviewed by antonis Kalogeropoulos on 11/02/2016.
andy regal, Wall Street Journal, interviewed by Federica cherubini on 09/03/2016.
42
it is still early days in the development of online news video. New technologies like vr and 360degree video can bring a new immersive and differentiated experience to it. there is still
considerable room for growth, with greater usage of mobile video by younger audiences perhaps a
hopeful sign for the future. Projections of future online video advertising spend are also positive
(eMarketer, 2016), though it is worth bearing in mind that these do not distinguish between
entertainment content and news, and relate to aggregate spending rather than the amount that
can be expected for each video. video is clearly going to be a much bigger part of the future news
landscape, but it is unlikely to replace text. we should also not expect a new format like video to
solve the fundamental problems of the news industry anytime soon.
43
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Note: all urls were accessed in May 2016.
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company’, 9 december, http://www.axelspringer.de/en/presse/axel-Springer-acquires-N24-N24and-welt-group-forming-Multimedia-news-company_19647692.html.
bilton, r. 2016. ‘the guardian’s First vr Project Makes viewers experience the Horrors of Solitary
confinement’, Nieman Lab, 28 april, http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/04/the-guardians-first-vrproject-makes-viewers-experience-the-horrors-of-solitary-confinement/.
calderone, M. 2013. ‘washington Post tv: Network launches two Political web Shows amid
video expansion’, The huffington Post, 29 July, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/
washington-post-tv-in-play-on-background_n_3668534.html.
cherubini, F. and Nielsen r. K. 2016. Editorial Analytics: Developing and Using Audience Data and
Metrics. Oxford: reuters institute for the Study of Journalism.
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/editorial%20analytics%20%20how%20news%20media%20are%20developing%20and%20using%20audience%20data%20
and%20metrics.pdf.
digiday. 2015a. ‘Showing People what they want: a timeline of Facebook’s recent News Feed
tweaks’, 2 February, http://digiday.com/publishers/showing-people-want-timeline-facebooksrecent-news-feed-tweaks/.
digiday. 2015b. ‘al Jazeera’s distributed content unit generated 2.2 billion Facebook video views
in 2015’, 13 January, http://digiday.com/publishers/al-jazeeras-distributed-content-unit-generated2-2-bil-facebook-video-views-2015/.
digiday. 2016. ‘Facebook loosens its video ad ban for Publishers’, 22 February,
http://digiday.com/platforms/facebook-opens-top-publishers-posting-clearly-commercial-videos/.
the drum. 2016. ‘guardian labs’ anna watkins on surviving the “adblockalypse” and keeping
editorial integrity with branded content’, 11 February,
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/02/11/guardian-labs-anna-watkins-surviving-adblockalypseand-keeping-editorial-integrity.
eMarketer. 2016. ‘uS digital display ad Spending to Surpass Search ad Spending in 2016’, 11
Jan., http://www.emarketer.com/article/uS-digital-display-ad-Spending-Surpass-Search-adSpending-2016/1013442.
ericsson. 2015. ‘ericsson Mobility report’, June,
https://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2015/ericsson-mobility-report-june-2015.pdf.
Fast company. 2016. ‘How buzzfeed’s Jonah Peretti is building a 100-year Media company’, 16
Feb., http://www.fastcompany.com/3056057/most-innovative-companies/how-buzzfeeds-jonahperetti-is-building-a-100-year-media-company.
garrahan, M. and Mance, H. 2016. ‘buzzFeed slashes forecasts after missing 2015 targets’,
Financial Times, 12 april, https://next.ft.com/content/26ebf992-00c4-11e6-99cb83242733f755#axzz45vZwFveS.
griffith, e. 2015. ‘Facebook’s video Monetisation Plan is Here’, 1 July Fortune,
http://fortune.com/2015/07/01/facebook-video-monetization/.
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guardian. 2016. ‘welcome to your cell’, no date given, http://www.theguardian.com/world/nginteractive/2016/apr/27/6x9-a-virtual-experience-of-solitary-confinement.
Herrman, N. 2016. ‘Media websites battle Faltering ad revenue and traffic’, the New York Times,
17 april, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/business/media-websites-battle-falteringadrevenue-and-traffic.html?_r=1.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/business/media-websites-battle-falteringad-revenue-andtraffic.html?_r=1.
iab. 2015. IAB/IAB/PwC UK Digital Adspend Study – Full Year 2015.
http://www.iabuk.net/research/digital-adspend.
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Küng, l. 2015. Innovators in Digital News. london: i.b. tauris.
Marketingland. 2015. ‘top 10 video creators in October: buzzFeed tasty ranks No. 1 with 1.1
billion video views’, November, http://marketingland.com/top-10-video-creators-in-octoberbuzzfeed-tasty-ranks-no-1-earning-1-1-billion-video-views-152906.
the Media briefing. 2015. ‘telegraph Media group's ben Sinden On How video content Shapes
the Future of Publishing’, 6 November, https://www.themediabriefing.com/video/video-telegraphmedia-group-s-ben-sinden-on-how-video-content-shapes-the-future-of-publishing.
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of Journalism.
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reuters institute for the Study of Journalism.
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for the Study of Journalism.
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Opportunities of distributed video’, 16 March, https://www.newsrewired.com/2016/03/16/livegetting-social-right-the-challenges-and-opportunities-of-distributed-video/.
Newswhip. 2016. ‘what Facebook’s New live video Features Mean for Publishers’, april,
https://www.newswhip.com/2016/04/what-facebook-live-video-means-forpublishers/#ot3kOr2iS8eoxmlO.97.
Nielsen, r. K. and Sambrook, r. 2016. What Is happening to Television News. Oxford: reuters
institute for the Study of Journalism. http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/
what%20is%20happening%20to%20television%20news.pdf.
Spangler, t. 2016. ‘vice to launch Six New vertical Sites, 20 tv channels worldwide this Year’, 6
May, Variety, http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/vice-6-verticals-20-tv-channels-newfronts1201768418/.
Swant, M. 2016. ‘the economist is looking to bolster its content with virtual reality and Mobile
video’, 10 May, AdWeek, http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/economist-looking-bolsterits-content-virtual-reality-and-mobile-video-171374.
45
List of Interviewees
Country
Name
Organisation
germany
Sven christian, Head of video, Spiegel Online,
Head and Founder of Spiegel.tv
Spiegel
germany
Oliver rasche, web video team leader
N24/die welt
germany
antje lorenz, Head of web video News
N24/die welt
germany
wolfgang Jaschensky, Head of video
Süddeutsche Zeitung
italy
Francesco Piccinini, editor-in-chief
Fanpage
italy
andrea iannuzzi,
executive editor, agl (agenzia giornali locali)
gruppo espresso
italy
Nino luca, video Journalist
corriere della Sera
uK
James Montgomery,
Head of digital and technology
bbc
uK
chris lunn, Senior Product Manager, video
bbc
uK
Nathalie Malinarich, Mobile editor
bbc
uK
esra dogramaci, digital consultant
bbc world Service
uK
alison gow, digital innovation editor
trinity Mirror regionals
uK
christian bennett, global Head of video and audio guardian
uK
Jason Mills, Head of digital
itv News
uK
edward adams, Head of video
telegraph Media group
uK
Stephen Hull, editor-in-chief
Huffington Post uK
uK
Mark Melling, director of video
aOl europe (Huffington Post uK)
uK
tom Standage, deputy editor
the economist
uK
ryan Smith, Supervising Producer
cNN international
uSa
Sarah Frank, executive Producer
Nowthis
uSa
asish Patel, Publisher
Nowthis
uSa
xana antunes, editor for New initiatives
Quartz
uSa
brian Korner, director of digital video Operations
Fox News
uSa
Michael Shagoury, editorial lead
aJ+
uSa
andy regal, global Head of video
wall Street Journal
uSa
Julie iannuzzi, Head of digital Strategy,
Production, Programming, video
uSa today
uSa
Micah gelman, Senior editor,
director of editorial video
washington Post
garrett goodman,
director of business development
wochit
Hillary Kay, Marketing director
wibbitz
John Pullman, global Head of video and Pictures
reuters
46
RISJ PublIcatIonS
DIGITAL NEWS PROJECT REPORTS
Journalism, Media and Technology Predictions 2016
Nic Newman
Editorial Analytics: how News Media are Developing
and Using Audience Data and Metrics
Federica cherubini and rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Public Service News and Digital Media
annika Sehl, alessio cornia, and
rasmus Kleis Nielsen
What's happening to TV News?
rasmus Kleis Nielsen and richard Sambrook
DIGITAL NEWS PROJECT REPORTS FORTHCOMING
Private Media and Digital News
alessio cornia, annika Sehl, and
APAC Supplementary Digital News Report 2016
Kruakae Pothong and rasmus Kleis Nielsen
The Rise of Fact-Checking Sites in Europe
lucas graves & Federica cherubini
Digital Journalism Start-Ups in Europe
online Video News
antonis Kalogeropoulos, Federica cherubini, and
Nic Newman
Digital News Report 2016
Nic Newman, richard Fletcher, david a. l. levy and
SELECTED RISJ BOOKS
(published jointly with I.B.Tauris)
SELECTED RISJ CHALLENGES
(published jointly with I.B.Tauris)
Media, Revolution, and Politics in Egypt:
The Story of an Uprising
abdalla Hassan
The Kidnapping of Journalists: Reporting from
high-Risk Conflict Zones
robert g. Picard and Hannah Storm
The Euro Crisis in the Media: Journalistic Coverage
of Economic Crisis and European Institutions
robert g. Picard (ed)
Innovators in Digital News
lucy Küng
Local Journalism: The Decline of Newspapers and
the Rise of Digital Media
rasmus Kleis Nielsen (ed)
The Ethics of Journalism: Individual, Institutional and
Cultural Influences
wendy N. wyatt (ed)
Political Journalism in Transition:
Western Europe in a Comparative Perspective
raymond Kuhn and rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds)
Transparency in Politics and the Media:
Accountability and open Government
Nigel bowles, James t. Hamilton,
david a. l. levy (eds)
The Media, Privacy and Public Shaming:
The Boundaries of Disclosure
Julian Petley
Journalism and PR: News Media and Public
Relations in the Digital Age
John lloyd and laura toogood
Reporting the EU: News, Media and the European
Institutions
John lloyd and cristina Marconi
Climate Change in the Media: Reporting Risk and
Uncertainty
James Painter
Women and Journalism
Suzanne Franks
Transformations in Egyptian Journalism
Naomi Sakr
Supported by
Reuters Institute
for the Study of Journalism
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk
digitalnewsreport.org
9 781907 384219
I G I TA L N E W S P R O J E C T D I G I TA L N E W S P R O J E C T D I G I TA L N E W S P R O J E C T D I G I TA L N E W S
ISBN 978-1-907384-21-9

The Future of Online News Video - Reuters Institute for the study of

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